Kevin Cole's mother Susan who has campaigned to have her sons life sentence reduced

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A Liverpool man who has been in prison for almost half of his life for a murder he says he did not commit has appealed against his conviction to the country's most senior judge.

Kevin Samuel Cole, 36, formerly of Wavertree, says he was wrongly identified as the man who killed John Dookie in a pub car park in St Peter’s Street, Preston, on St Valentine's Day 1997.

Today, he appeared via a video link before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, at the Court of Appeal as his legal team launched a bid to have the conviction quashed and get him released.

But Cole was left facing an anxious wait to discover the outcome after Lord Judge, sitting today with Mr Justice Mackay and Mr Justice Griffith Williams, decided to delay the decision.

Mr Dookie, then of Princes Reach, Riversway, Preston, died in hospital two days after he was stabbed in a suspected ambush. His friend, James Handyside, also suffered serious injuries.

One witness managed to pick out Cole in an identification parade, but his barrister, Henry Blaxland QC, told the three judges today that there were serious problems with the quality of the evidence.

He said it was a "classic problematic identification case", the incident having occurred unexpectedly and quickly in dim lighting at night.

The witness had incorrectly described Cole's height and spoke of clothing which did not match his, but did match that worn by another man who was present.

There should never have been an identification parade - notorious for resulting in incorrect identifications - involving this female witness, he continued.

"It's absolutely clear that the witness was not describing the appellant, Mr Cole," he said.

"Nobody properly could conclude that she was identifying him. If the jury had followed the judge's direction properly, then they should have acquitted him."

Continuing, he said lies told by Cole, who claimed he was not even in Preston at the time of the killing, had been used to back up his identification, but should not have been.

"Although the lies might have provided a foundation for a circumstantial case, they didn't on their own support the specific identification of the identifying witness," he said. "That is the problem with this case."

For the prosecution, John Price QC, said the identification parade was "mandatory" and, in Cole's case, "correctly held". He said the appeal should be dismissed.

Lord Judge reserved judgment until a later, as yet unspecified, date. Cole has previously attempted to appeal, but lost.

His case was back in court after a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the body which investigates potential miscarriages of justice.